The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (affectionately known as the “Frisco”) was a St. Louis-based railroad that operated in nine Midwest and southern states from 1876 to 1980.

The railroad stretched from Kansas City to Pensacola and St. Louis to Oklahoma City and Dallas, having some of the most iconic motive power, logos and slogans in the history of railroading. The Frisco was also renowned for excellent passenger service led by some of the best-looking steam locomotives ever built, and celebrated for fast freight hauling behind steam locomotives of its own design as well as diesels in the later era.

Born as a branch of the great Pacific Railroad project of the mid-19th Century, the Frisco became a separate entity that helped to feed the population of a growing nation, helped build its factories and ship those factories’ products, helped win two World Wars, and helped to carry Americans East and West, North and South in style and comfort. In the 104 years of its separate existence, it became a major corporation that provided the best service possible to its customers while treating its employees like a big family, never losing the homey touch enshrined in its Ozarks-inspired Coonskin logo.

Fiscal responsibility, pragmatic management, and a touch of whimsy combined to make the Frisco a road beloved by all its fans, the Frisco People, those who did business with the road and those who worked for the road, or at least wished they had.

The Frisco merged with, and was assimilated into, the Burlington Northern on November 21, 1980, but most of its lines are still in service today with the BNSF or various short lines.

It is with great pride that we present Frisco.org; a non-commercial website dedicated to memory of Frisco people, operations, and equipment as well as to preserve the history of the railroad. This site allows users to share information and includes many individuals who keep the Frisco alive through model railroading.

If you would like to join us, we invite you to register as a member. Memberships to this site are moderated and we usually approve new membership applications within minutes, or in some cases a few hours.

If you are already registered and cannot log in or have changed your e-mail address, please do not re-register with a new user name. Click here to contact us and we will respond as quickly as possible.

Southwest Division Passenger trains

What passenger trains rain on this division, any name trains? When did passenger service stop? Especially interested in passenger operations between Quannah and Tulsa.

BTW, an end of an era is close upon us, as the old Frisco mainline will be re-routed out of OKC to the west, and will no longer be passing the old Union Station platforms alongside the old R.I. (UP) The UP tracks will not be moved, but the SLWC will no longer be able to go through there due to the new I-40 project. All trains west of of OKC will be routed over the BNSF Red Rock sub to get across the river, then back onto the SLWC former Packing Town Branch. The Packing Town lead is currently being connected to the old main about 2 miles west of the station.

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

I certainly hope that somebody can help ShortlineHogger out, since I also need some information about that topic. I know that there was KC to Oklahoma City service. And, in the late 1950's there was service from Tulsa to to Dallas, because my mother and I rode that train from our hometown to Sherman, Texas when my cousin was born. But, beyond that, I really don't have any information about SW Division passenger service. I would really like to know, since I am modeling a tiny piece of the SW Division circa 1950 (1948-53).

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

Very briefly, here’s a thumbnail.

As shown in the Southwestern ETT 30D (see the timetable section of this site), before the War, gas-electrics handled passenger service between Oklahoma City and Quanah. With the entry of the US into WWII, traffic into the Lawton-Ft Sill area required increased capacity, and the doodle-bugs were replaced with conventional passenger equipment and steam power. McCall’s and Schultz’s Frisco Southwest have photographs of the passenger locals in the hands of black and gold 4-6-2 #1017 and a dog house equipped 4-6-0 #711. The train depicted with #1017 has a 4-door baggage/2-door RPO car (something similar to car 108 or 115) , a baggage-chair car, and two un-air conditioned chair cars.

Post-war, the trains were dieselized, but by June 1955 permission had been received to discontinue service between Lawton and Quanah. The Meteor service was extended from Oklahoma City to Lawton, and typically consisted of a baggage-RPO, perhaps another baggage car, a chair car, and a St. Louis-Lawton 14-4 Pullman. The sleeper was removed sometime 1959-1960.

Passenger service west of Oklahoma City was gone after the Frisco cleaned-house during Sept 1964, and removed all passenger trains except for 101-102 and 1-2.

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

Thanks for the good information! Regarding trains #1 and 2, were they local service? Perhaps part of another train, with cars dropped in Monett to continue on to OKC? ANy idea what the regular train consist was post war? Thanks again for the info, I'm an engineer for the Stillwater Central, who took over operations on the Lawton and Sooner sub, and am very interested in the historical operations of the line. Thanks!
TR

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

Remember, that after the house cleaning, Sept 1964, trains 1 & 2 were known as the Oklahoman. The Texas Special, also 1 & 2, disappeared during 1959. Number 1 left St Louis at 8:55 every morning and arrived in OKC at 11 PM. Number 2 left OKC at 5:45 AM, and arrived at St Louis 8 PM. In Oklahoma, 1 & 2 called on Afton, Vinita, Claremore, Tulsa, Sapulpa, Bristow, Chandler, and OKC. It's almost a local, but not the stop at nearly every station like 3 & 4 were. The public time table very carefully stated that all "passenger"-carrying cars are light weight, streamlined, and air conditioned. However, it wasn't uncommon to see heavyweight cars. The train carried one or two chair cars and a chair-buffet-lounge. The train had one baggage-RPO plus 3-5 baggage and express cars to handle the head-end stuff. Since trains 709/710 and 309/310 were gone, there wasn't any work to be done in Monett.

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

Good Eveing - I am new to this group, but have lived in Mustang (not far from the former Frisco tracks) for 32 years and find the information awesome. In regards to ShortlineHogger wanting some history of the area, at one time the Frisco ran 5-6 trains a day through town. I was a youngster, but remember the trains interupting the football games on Friday nights.

On a sad note, in 1973 or 74, there was a major wreck about 1/2 mile west of the Czech Hall road crossing, I remember it clearly because one of the church members saw the whole thing from a nearby hill. We had just moved here, but heard the collision inside the house. Apparently there was miscommunication between the 2 trains, and one was supposed to have taken the siding in Mustang for a meet with the other. As a result, they hit head on in the middle of the curve. We rushed out to see what happened in time to be evacuated because of a hazardous spill.

Another occurance was several years later when a local derailed east of Wheatland.

One of the coolest things on the lines was in the early 80's, they ran a portion of the Homecoming Express from Altus to Oklahoma City (the other section started in Tulsa and went to OKC.) I was lucky enought to have been able to ride the entire route from Altus, but the train (13+ passenger cars) was met at each town with high school bands, and one staged train robbery. If anyone is interested, I have a large collection of photos that I took along the way.

Re: Southwest Division Passenger trains

Here is another little tidbit of information I remembered after the previous post. Just west (1/4 mile) of the crossing at MacArthur, the Frisco had a spur (now mostly ripped up and in the middle of the new siding) that came off of the mainline to the south. After crossing 152, the spur traveled across the field & crossed 59th street just west of the FAA Center.
Continuing on, it made a 180 degree turn crossed MacArthur on the south end of the FAA, and then had a small (2-3 track) yard at the FAA center.
At one time, the DOT sponsored a safety train that consisted of an E8 or 9 painted up with the DOT logo and a matching box car that was stored on the spur. The box car has since been scrapped, but the last I heard the locomotive was at the DOT facility in Colorado.